Part 7/8 - In part seven of our eight part series with auteur writer/director Ti West (V/H/S, In a Valley of Violence, The Sacrament, The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, The Roost), we discuss the state of horror films and horror trends like "torture porn." We learn why Ti finds the label "slow burn" which is often attributed to his films, reductive, and further discuss how it is that horror has become homogenized and less risky and outlandish than ever before.
Throughout his career as a director, writer, and indie horror film icon, Ti has stayed true to his own vision and telling the story he wanted to tell. Sure, his films are called "slow-burn" and he quips, "If there's ever a day when slow burn films are incredibly popular, I'm going to flourish because it's so my wheelhouse." For Ti West, making slow burn horror films is not a choice. Rather, his own aesthetics and sense of story aren't in lock step with the "creative zeitgeist" of the moment and, for him, that's okay.
"The Shining" and "Rosemary's Baby" weren't labeled as slow burn horror movies, Ti mentions. Nevertheless, they fit all the criteria of being just that with screenplay time for each film clocking in at more than two hours and the tension mounting scene-by-scene, act-by-act.
